


Rain

by Anythingtoasted



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Ficlet, M/M, Season 8
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-17
Updated: 2013-01-17
Packaged: 2017-11-25 20:39:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/642742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anythingtoasted/pseuds/Anythingtoasted
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Imagine living forever."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rain

Rain patters against the windows, a steady stream, smelling like the sea, like driftwood, when it slips under the loose window-frames; when it patters dully on the carpets.

Castiel is tracing patterns on Dean’s skin with his fingers; nonsense, mostly; the occasional poem, protective rune. None of them will stay. His ear is pressed to the flesh of Dean’s thigh, nose against his skin, cheek resting, gentle with the huff of Dean’s breaths, in and out. They have been like this for a while, now; not talking. Dean woke and Castiel woke and then there was strange, aching silence.

It has been this way since he returned.

Dean, lying back, sits up on his elbows and looks down at him. He coughs, gently. Just once.

“So, are we gonna stalk about it?”

Castiel eyes him carefully. “About what?”

“This.”

Castiel smiles absently, and looks down at where Dean’s stomach is spread out before him, like acres and acres of soft skin from where he is. Like Dean’s face is miles and miles away. “Not tonight.” He says, quietly, and Dean – never one to argue against silence – acquiesces. Castiel can feel the fine tickle of the hairs on Dean’s legs against the rise of his cheek. “I’ll tell you a story, instead.”

Dean mumbles something, irritated, and lies back. He puts his hands over his eyes. “Not this junk again, Cas. I thought you were-“

“I’m sane, Dean.” He can’t help the laughter that creeps, just slightly, into his voice. “Humor me.”

Dean leans up again, just his head, and cracks one eye open. “Whatever.” He drops back again. Castiel doesn’t blame him for being tired of this sort of thing; he barrels on, nonetheless.

Castiel kisses the line where Dean’s hip meets his groin, touching the space with his nose. Then he settles.

“Imagine living forever.” He starts, and Dean snorts.

“Cool.” Dean says immediately, and Castiel smiles, but it’s rueful.

“Imagine seeing everything in the universe.” He starts, again, and Dean shifts restlessly, but Castiel continues. “Everything. Every creature, every stage of their growing; every great love story, every civilization burned to ashes, every triumph. Before that; hundreds of billions of years of nothingness, of empty space. Imagine being so old that not only do you not remember your own birth, but-“ Castiel smiled into Dean’s thigh. “You don’t even remember if you were born at all.”

Dean says nothing.

“Imagine,” he goes on; index and middle fingers together, drawing lines around Dean’s belly-button. A road. A snake. A rune. “Imagine that humanity is new. A wavering child, barely old enough, yet, to stand. A thing that needs a mother’s hand to pull it onward, a father’s to keep it firm. Something so new that you can still see its innocence, however it denies its existence. Wilful. Precocious.” He laughs. “Foolish.” He spreads his palm on Dean’s chest, slowly uncurling his fingers, feeling Dean’s breathing, his heartbeat, the endless pull and tug of the vessels and muscles inside him. “Imagine –“

The rain outside the window is background noise, a steady whisper of dark blue, almost black, hitting the windows like a thousand gentle, drumming fingertips, like childhood friends, calling him outside. He closes his eyes.

“Imagine that you find them beautiful, and fascinating, and dirty, and terrible, and brave. Imagine that no one else does; that you alone sit watching them for hundreds of years on end. That you, alone, stare into their hearts and see something you wish you could hold in your hands, it is so light; so beautiful. So full of Grace.”

“Cas-“

Castiel talks over him. “Imagine that they hurt themselves, and you cannot help. Imagine that you hurt them, kill them, even; the child stumbles, cities fall. A flick of your fingers, they die. Hundreds of lives, thousands, in seconds. All of them, fleeting as dust.” He pauses. “But you love them. You do.”

“Cas.” Dean says, again, but it’s not the beginning of a sentence, it’s just that.

“Imagine there is one of them – one. Out of hundreds of billions who have gone before – whose light, though dull, though flickering,  _blinded_ you.” His voice slips quiet of its own accord; there is nothing he can do to stop it. “One.”

“Castiel.” Dean repeats, voice rising from the head of the bed, and Castiel lifts himself to look at him. The nakedness in his eyes is  _terrifying_. “Cas, please.” Dean’s voice is hoarse. “Not tonight. You said, ‘not tonight’.”

“I did.” He nods, and returns to where he was; cheek pressed to Dean’s warm skin, his palm flat to his stomach, eyes half-lidded. “I did.” He repeats, softly. He goes quiet. He listens to the rain, its cold hands rattling glass, its chill sweeping across the room, its steady drip a metronome, strange and heavy in this quiet.

Dean reaches for his hand, lays his palm down, hesitant, and Castiel feels him breathe all the way out, chest sinking low, filling again, sinking once more. Dean joins their fingers. Says nothing.

He falls asleep, eyes dropping closed.

The rain keeps time.  

 

 


End file.
